This invention relates to processing foods, and more particularly to apparatus for generating a continuous supply of smoke for hot or cold smoking of food.
When preparing food, such as on a barbecue grill, it is well known to add wetted wood chips to the fire to generate smoke that enhances the flavor of the food. As the wet wood smolders, it generates smoke, and also dries out. The dry wood then burns with little or no smoke. U.S. Pat. No. #3,347, 148 issued Oct. 17, 1967 to Williams discloses a wood chips packed cylinder made of a fine metal mesh that acts as a flame arrester to prevent the wood from bursting into flames. No facilities are provided for refilling the cylinder. U.S. Pat. No. 4,934,272 issued Jun. 19, 1990 to Stemin et al. discloses a combustible cylinder made of rice paper packed with sawdust of a particular particle size that is designed to smolder like a cigar, independent of the heat from the barbecue. The cylinder is designed to burn from one end to the other suspended in a ring. The entire cylinder is within a moving air stream with the air then moving into the barbecue.
It is difficult to get a controlled uniform smoke emission over a period of time from the apparatus of the prior art, and to add fuel while in continuous operation.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a smoke generator with an automatic continuous feeding of fuel to generate a stream of smoke that is substantially uniform with time and controllable. The smoker includes a fire chamber with a fire box having a grid for holding the burning fuel. A supply of forced air is fed in below the grid. A smoke outlet above the grid passes the smoke stream out to a food smoker. The smoker may use hot smoking or cool smoking since the smoke generator is separate from the food processor. A chimney member extends upward from the firebox. It is filled with a supply of smoke generating fuel such as wood chips or wood pellets. The fuel in the chimney drops down onto the grid as fuel is consumed. This ensures a continuous supply of fuel over time so that the smoker will supply a controllable, continuous, and substantially uniform supply of smoke without operator action. A disposable fuel cartridge may be provided to facilitate fuel loading. These and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention will become more apparent when the detailed description is studied in conjunction with the drawings in which like elements are designated by like reference characters in the various drawing figures.